


If I Had You Here

by geckoholic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Grief/Mourning, Holography, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 23:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14296119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: In hindsight, Keith can’t even pinpoint where exactly it all went south, who lost their concentration first. Fact is, they disbanded at a crucial point in the fight, and the sea monster – which they had previously joked about killing before breakfast – went straight for the head of Voltron. It went straight for Shiro.





	If I Had You Here

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Between Two Points zine, and done in collaboration with the wonderful StudioMugen. Art can be viewed [here](https://studiomugen.tumblr.com/post/172864563590/since-we-can-finally-post-our-submissions-here-is)!
> 
> Beta-read by alastair and yohkobennington. Thanks to you both!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Moon And Moon" by Bat For Lashes.

Back when Keith was very little, his father had a home video he played all the time: grey-scale and short and blurry, made with a camcorder, just a few minutes of a picnic on the beach. Keith was far too young to remember where they took it; he doesn’t even remember ever going to a beach. That’s not surprising, though. He hardly remembers either of them at all. But that video – shot from a tripod, showing him as a chubby baby, clad in nothing but diapers and a cutesy shirt, playing with a plastic shovel while his parents laugh and kiss behind him – is seared into his memory. His father played it every day, at least once. Often he would cry; not ugly crying, no sobbing, but soundless tears that were only a memory of a greater pain. Later, in the orphanage, Keith would scoff whenever he thought about his father and his daily routine of self-flagellation, couldn’t comprehend why someone would voluntarily pick at a wound like that, day after day, to keep it from scabbing over.

Now he sits in Pidge’s workshop on the castle, watches her fiddle with an interface that used to be an integral part of the chamber where Allura went to converse with _her_ father, and it finally makes sense.

 

***

 

It was a standard mission, although starting to call them that might have been their first mistake. There is no such thing as standard or commonplace when it comes to battle. Thinking that way slows down a soldier’s instincts, makes him complacent. They all heard those sermons during Garrison training, but it’s a little harder to remember after years of fighting a relentless war, and at some point they did start to distinguish between difficult missions and easy ones: standard, simple and easy on the one side, and out of the ordinary on the other.

In hindsight, Keith can’t even pinpoint where exactly it all went south, who lost their concentration first. Fact is, they disbanded at a crucial point in the fight, and the sea monster – which they had previously joked about killing before breakfast – went straight for the head of Voltron. It went straight for _Shiro_.

By the time they managed to salvage what’s left of the cockpit, Shiro wasn’t breathing anymore. He was still and pale and _he didn't move_ , and Black was wailing so loudly, so miserably, it echoed in all their minds.

 

***

 

Subjectively, there would be more important uses for the time of their resident tech geeks. The ship and the lions are battle-worn at this point, always something to fix, and trying to insert the personality of their late leader into a non-essential system is, frankly, a luxury they can't afford.

That doesn't stop either of them. 

The imprint comes from Black. The lion's memory of her paladin, still fresh in her consciousness, can be digitized... somehow. Keith doesn't really understand, nor is he particularly bothered by the technical hows and whys of it all. What matters to him is that, when it's all done and he wakes up in the middle of the night because there's no one to curl up against, no one sharing his warmth with him, he'll have somewhere to go. Shiro won't be gone. Not all of him, anyway. Not entirely. 

He'll have his own version of that blurry old home video, and his will even be able to share a conversation, to answer his questions, to give him advice. It will be a band aid, and it will keep the wound open and sore, but it might just keep him sane. 

 

*** 

 

The first time Keith watches Shiro’s face materialize in front of him is like a knee to the groin. If it weren’t for the company of his entire team, he’d double over, cry, scream, but… he’s their leader now, it’s what Shiro wanted him to be, and he can rein his emotions in for their sake. This isn’t just Keith’s loss; Shiro may have been his boyfriend, his partner, but he was everyone’s friend and leader.

And so he swallows that first reaction and tries to see the hologram as more than a memory made flesh. It’s also a source of information and advice. It’s strategical. And even though no one will mind if Keith uses it as a way to assuage his grief, now and then, that’s not its primary purpose.

They all exchange a few words with the hologram, the goodbyes neither of them could say in real life. Then Keith ushers them out of the room and towards their lions for a training lesson.

The battles rage on. The war isn’t over.

 

***

 

Adjustment to his new role doesn’t go over without bumps in the road. Red misses him. Black misses Shiro. They all need to find their footing again, and the instant reactions to his voice and command aren’t as ingrained in all of them as Shiro’s were. There are arguments and squabbles and open critique, and the sentence _but Shiro would have done it differently_ gets spit into his face on more than one occasion. Keith is well aware of this, but making it his concept for leadership to imitate Shiro with every step won’t do them any favors in the long run. And yet he can’t fault them for rebelling.

It’s after one particularly nasty argument with Pidge that he slinks into the holographic chamber, alone, for the first time. The hologram flickers to life, and Keith wants to cry like his father once did, the same silent tears, new blood trickling out of an old wound after it’s been scratched again.

Kneeling in front of the artificial image, he tells the hologram that he doesn't know how to do it all alone. Whispers the words, really, and almost expects the system not to have caught them. Adds that none of them know, because this isn’t supposed to just be about his grief.

Shiro’s hologram crouches down and smiles. Reaches out its hand, then retracts, like it belatedly remembered that comforting touch isn't an option anymore. 

With clipped and precise words, like a report, Keith describes the conversation with Pidge, tells the hologram that it’s been one of many, and the gentle smile he gets in return is so lifelike it ribs his heart in two. 

“It’s okay,” it says, and the voice, so close and yet not exactly the same, makes tears sting in his eyes. “You’ll figure it out together. Give them time to adjust.” 

“They’ll never follow me like they followed you,” Keith murmurs, and the hologram makes another aborted motion, this time to touch his face and tip his chin up. He stands up straighter in response, meets the the hologram’s eyes no matter how painful the sight. 

“They never _followed_ me either, they trusted my lead.” And at least they got that one right; that’s the kind thing Shiro would have said. “Trust is earned, not demanded. It takes time.” 

Keith wipes the wetness from the corner of his eyes and rises to his feet. 

“Thank you,” he says and turns the hologram off, having received the first lesson of many that he didn’t bother to learn from the real Shiro when he still had the chance, because he expected Shiro to always be around. “Thank you for everything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://lostemotion.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/spacenerdz).


End file.
